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Review: Pages for iOS

So then MacBoy rides again. This will be the first fully functional blog I will have created using Pages for iPhone. I’m an experienced user of MS Word on my PC at work and I have briefly used the trial of Pages ’09 on my Mac. I have to say I didn’t get on with it, it’s all inspectors and I missed the familiar icons. So yes MacBoy likes MS Word 2002. Shh don’t tell anyone.

So why did I get Pages on the iPhone? Well, as you dear readers know I have a desire to write, there are times when one is inspired but nowhere near a computer. So this will be cool for that, it seems to be more feature rich than notes, giving you things like word counts and autosave. 134 words by the way 139!

The interface is slimmed down for the iPhone which is needed due to lack of screen real estate, at present aside from the keyboard there are just four buttons on screen, which is a huge change from computer word processing applications. Due to this I think although editing, formatting and styles as you create is possible I reckon I will get the inspired words down(!) and then stylise.

The options available for formatting your text are plentiful and easier to implement than any MS app I have used, the only feature missing is mail merge but who is gonna use that on a phone!!

One thing that is annoying (aside from achey thumb) is the lack of the ability to use any landscape orientated features. This I feel would be useful for reading back what you have written, some folks also like the landscape keyboard. A little confused why this is not included, as it is an iOS wide feature. Other minuses right now are the inability to sync to dropbox. However the need for this is limited due to the impending arrival of icloud.

In fact due to the iCloudyness baked in, the app is future proof, this coupled with a handy £6 price tag you can’t really go wrong. If you have an iOS device, you may as well get the app, it will save you having to find a pen and more besides!!